‘Noo, my aunt, ye mun ken, was a widow woman who lived on a bit property she had left her doon at the small, ootlandish-named seaport, as it was then, o’ Bocca Chica, on the Northumberland coast.
‘There was a man there she kenned nicely—in fact, she aye said afterwards, wi’ a shudder at the thocht o’t, that at one time he wanted to marry wi’ her—who cut a big figure i’ the place, by name Isaac Stephenson—“Black Isaac,” as he was mair usually styled. It seems he had been bred and born i’ the place, but had run awa to sea i’ his youth, an’ after many voyagings here an’ there turns up again wi’ pockets fu’ o’ siller, and a wee, misbegotten heathen dwarf o’ a Malay as his attendant.
‘The dwarf called hissel’ Chilpo, or some such uncanny name, an’ was a kind o’ body-servant an’ clerk an’ dirty-job man to Isaac. But Isaac never let on where he picked him up, an’ Chilpo was a sour-tempered little deil, whom maist folks were terrified o’; sae naebody e’er kenned muckle o’ his antecedents or ancestry.
‘Weel, Isaac, on his settling doon again at home, set up i’ business as a shipowner an’ broker, an’ carried on a large business as an exporter o’ coals, an’ did a bit, as maist everybody did i’ those days, i’ the smuggling line—salt, an’ lace, an’ brandy, ye ken. He had siller, as I said, when he started his new trade, though naebody kenned hoo he had come by it; but it was no lang before he was the richest man i’ the toon, an’ folk began to talk weel o’ him, an’ praise him up as a good citizen as was a credit to the toon, an’ ask him to open bazaars for them, an’ suchlike.
‘There was just one strange thing aboot him, an’ that was that the womenfolk couldn’t abide him. E’en after he had made hisself the richest man i’ the toon, he could ne’er get hissel’ married, though ’twas said my aunt, when he took up wi’ religion, had aince had a thocht o’ him, but no for lang, for there was suthin’ aboot him that tarrified her when it came near the point.
‘He was no ill-favoured neither, for I mind seein’ him mysel’ as a lad aince I was stayin’ wi’ my aunt—a tall, poo’erfu’, black-haired man, wi’ heavy eyebrows, an’ a lustfu’ sort o’ eye—half hectorin’, half cowardly. But he had a cruel sort o’ look aboot him—thick-lipped, an’ greedy, sweaty sort o’ hands.
‘Weel, after a good few years o’ prosperity he turned sort o’ sickly-like, an’ for the first time i’ his life began to think upon his latter end, an’ at the finish takes up wi’ a sect o’ Bible Christians, or Christadelphians, or some such body, who were glad to get hold o’ such a rich, influential sort o’ person withoot askin’ ower mony questions.
‘Weel, he gans to his chapel, an’ he prays, an’ he gies his testimony, an’ calls hissel’ all sorts o’ names, but was ay cautious no to gie ower mony details o’ his sins, an’ the good folk were highly edified by it, my aunt amangst them, an’ asked him for subscriptions for every sort o’ charity.
‘But Chilpo, he couldna stand this sudden right-about-face, for there was nae releegion at aal i’ his wee, misshapen anatomy, naething but love o’ siller, and beastly, secretive pleasures o’ opium drams an’ such like. An’ he mutinies against it, an’ cusses an’ swears to hissel’ i’ his pigeon-English talk, for Isaac by degrees began to hae his doots aboot the lawfu’ness o’ smugglin’ an’ saeforth, an’ Chilpo’s wages an’ profits dootless wud suffer by his maister’s scruples.
‘Consequence was, there grew to be bad blood betwixt maister an’ man, an’ folk could hear them quarrelling inside the office o’ nights, till at the finish there’s a grand flare-up, Isaac seemingly strikin’ Chilpo, an’ Chilpo clickin’ his maister wi’ his knife.